The Salvation of Vengeance (Wanted Men #2) by Nancy Haviland Page B

Tegan demanded.
    “She’s still out. Is that normal? Been about six minutes.” Please say it’s normal.
    “How hard was she hit? Or was she hit? Did she fall? I need something here.”
    “From what it looked like, she fell back . . .” If she’d simply fallen, would the wound have been so bad? “She was pushed, and the back of her head connected with a wooden dresser.”
    “Okay. What else?”
    “She’s roughed up. There’s blood on her face, but I don’t think it’s hers. I can’t find a source for it, unless she bit her tongue or something.” Yeah. When that dead man nailed her in the face with his fist. The thought had him growling like an animal.
    “What? What happened?” Tegan asked at the sound of his rage.
    “Nothing. Just . . . reacting.”
    “Okay. Vinnie, don’t freak out, but she’s been unconscious a bit long. With a knock to the head, you should only go down for three or four minutes. Now, that doesn’t necessarily—”
    Vincente dropped the phone on the seat next to him.
    He wouldn’t freak out. He wouldn’t freak out.
    Breathing through it, he gently pulled the too-still, too-beautiful body in his arms closer and then thundered to her brother, “Put that fucking pedal down, Paynne! Get us home now!”

    After pounding through the door Vito held open, Vincente stormed into the well-lit foyer of the house with Caleb on his ass and made for the double doors that led to the basement. Hopefully no one was—
    Around.
    Great. His teeth snapped together when he saw Maks, Alek, Quan, Alesio, Gabriel, and Eva, pacing around the door he needed to use to get Nika to Tegan’s med room. Fuckin’ peanut gallery. Except for Eva, of course. The poor little thing looked as if she was about to lose it. He could see it in her eyes.
    Vasily stalked out of the living room, his private physician, Yuri Davidenko, hot on his heels. Vincente relaxed that much more at the sight of the brilliant doc, not caring why he was suddenly there when he hadn’t been when Vincente and Caleb had left. Two docs were better than one.
    His steps didn’t falter as he aimed for the already open doors, hoping to push through those gathered. But Eva stopped him with a hand on his arm. Lucky. The only one he wouldn’t double tap on the nose for getting the hell in his way.
    “Vincente?”
    He looked at a darkly glowering Gabriel. “Later.”
    “Is she okay?”
    Clearly she hadn’t noticed her friend’s blood-matted hair. Also clear, Tegan hadn’t yammered the details around. Vincente still didn’t look at Eva. He couldn’t.
    “She’s unconscious,” he ground out through clenched teeth. “Please, Eva, let me get her downstairs.”
    “Yes, of course.” Her voice shook as if she were riding an old-school wooden roller coaster.
    Vincente’s arms tightened around Nika, and then he was moving again. Down the wide staircase and through the living area with its massive sectional and mirror-backed bar area. He went left rather than right, which would have taken him down a corridor and past the theater room and two spare bedrooms and eventually onto Maksim’s suite. This way lead to the gym, Maks’s office, and their makeshift infirmary. It wasn’t Yuri’s mini-hospital where surgery could be performed, but it did the trick. He laid her on the metal table and got out of the way so Tegan—who’d pulled over a tray of instruments—and Yuri could get to her. He moved to the end of the table and clamped a hand around Nika’s slim ankle, for some reason needing the connection as he watched the Russian lift that gloriously bright head so he could see her wound.
    “Fuuuck,” Yuri cursed, even though his expression remained impassive. “Did she slip away immediately or was she lucid for a time after the hit?” His words were clipped and professional, his English perfect despite his thick accent.
    “She was spacey but okay for at least three minutes before she went out.”
    The relieved sigh that reached his